OK Education Chief Ditches GOP To Challenge GOP Gov

The Tulsa World reports:

State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister is running for governor — as a Democrat. The 57-year-old lifelong Republican told the Tulsa World in an exclusive interview that she is changing her party registration on Thursday in order to launch a bid to unseat Republican incumbent Kevin Stitt.

“Gov. Stitt is running the state into the ground,” said Hofmeister. “Through extremism, partisanship, ineffective leadership, he is hurting our education system, our health care, our infrastructure. “And unfortunately, Gov. Stitt has hijacked the Republican Party in Oklahoma.”

“We’ve had 10,000 Oklahomans lost. When you understand now how critical it was to have had a leader who contemplated expert advice and opinion and set an example to help protect Oklahomans, we could have avoided thousands of people dying.”

Read the full article.

Tulsa World exclusive: Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction announces campaign for governor. #oklaed https://t.co/vToNEkHccC

— Tulsa World (@tulsaworld) October 7, 2021